Our common plague

Fragment 12, supposedly

"the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep)".

     Diogenes of Oenoanda (2nd century A.D.), The philosophical inscription, fragment 3 IV, ed. & trans. M. F. Smith.  I was put onto this by Kyle Harper, "Epicurus today," First things no. 302 (April 2020):  49 (47-49), but have been prevented from procuring the latest critical edition by our current literal pandemic.

"whatever he suffered, we too suffered in him, and whatever we suffer, he too suffers in us."

"whatever he suffered, we too suffered in him, and whatever we suffer, he too suffers in us [(quidquid passus est, in illo et nos passi sumus; quia et nos quod patimur, in nobis et ipse patitur)]. Think of an analogy: if your head suffers some injury, can your hand be unaffected? Or if your hand is hurt, can your head be free from pain? Or if your foot is painful, can your head be unconcerned? When any one of our members suffers, all the other members hasten to help the one that is in pain. This solidarity meant that when Christ suffered, we suffered in him; and it follows that now that he has ascended into heaven, and is seated at the Father’s right hand, he still undergoes in the person of his Church whatever it may suffer amid the troubles of this world, whether temptations, or hardship, or oppression (for all these are the necessary means of our instruction, and through them the Church is purified, as gold is by fire) [(si ergo ille cum passus est, nos in illo passi sumus, et ille iam adscendit in caelum, et sedet ad dexteram patris; quidquid patitur ecclesia ipsius in tribulationibus huius saeculi, in tentationibus, in necessitatibus, in angustiis—quia sic illam oportet erudiri, ut igne tamquam aurum purgetur—, ipse patitur.)]."

     St. Augustine, In Ps. 62.2, trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/17, 230-231.  Latin from CAG (Past Masters).  That Boulding rendition is a bit looser than I would like.

"This clothing, once ours and now lost and the object of our search in any earthly clothing that we wear"

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This stripping (Entkleidung) of the body, "This 'uncovering [(Aufdeckung)]' of the body that caused its 'naked corporeality' to become visible, this pitilessly savage exposure [(schonunglos Entblößung)] of the body with all of the marks of its sexuality—which, as a consequence of sin becomes visible to the 'eyes' now 'opened'—can only be comprehended on the assumption that before the Fall into sin [there] was 'covered [(bedecken)]' what is now 'uncovered [(aufgedeckt)]', that [there] was veiled and clothed [(verhüllt und bekleidet)] what is now exposed and stripped [(enthüllt und entkleidet)]."

     Erik Peterson, "Theologie des Kleides." Benediktinische Monatschrift 16, no. 9 (1934):  348 (347-346).  Note the date.  Here is the 1993 Dom Hugh Gilbert translation of this into English in Communio, onto which I was put by Sara Koenig:

     This uncovering of the body, manifesting its 'naked bodiliness,' this pitiless exposure of the body and of all the marks of its sexuality, now visible to the 'opened eyes' as a consequence of the first sin, can be understood only once it is accepted that what came to be 'uncovered' was 'covered' prior to the Fall, and that what was now revealed and undressed had previously been concealed and clothed.  The body was man’s in a different way before the Fall, because man was God’s in a different way.  The 'disturbance' of human nature through the Fall led to the 'uncovering' of the body and to the realization of its 'nakedness.'  Before the Fall man belonged to God in such a way that the body—albeit not dressed in any human clothes—was still not 'naked.'  This 'non-nakedness' of the body, along with its unclothedness, is explained by the fact that supernatural grace covered the human person like a garment.  Man did not simply stand in the light of the divine glory; he was actually clothed with it.  But through sin man lost this divine glory, and when we see him now, we see a body without divine glory:  naked in the sense of the purely physical, stripped down to what is merely functional; a body lacking nobility, now that the divine glory which had enveloped and ultimately dignified it was no more. . . .

. . . The forfeiture of the garment of divine glory exposes not his 'unclothed' nature, but his nature as 'stripped,' the 'nakedness' of which becomes apparent in 'shame.'

. . . It may seem grotesquely inappropriate that man should have reacted to the Fall simply by covering his physical shame.  But . . . in the apparent inappropriateness of a biblical account which connects a 'Fall' which had occurred in the very center of the human person with the covering up of physical shame, there is expressed the truth that just as grace presupposes nature, so too the loss of grace exposes a stripping of nature in the whole of man's being.  He who a little while before had been clothed like an angel in divine glory must now cover the nakedness of his body with fig leaves.

. . . the clothing worn by fallen man is a remembering of the lost clothing worn by man in Paradise.  So living a memory, indeed, is it that every new change in fashion—which we adopt so willingly because it promises a new beginning of self-understanding—is, in fact, merely a reviving of our hope for that lost clothing which alone can signify what we are and can make our 'dignity' visible. 

"in their hour of need your mercy was at hand."

Good Friday 2020:
A very strange year indeed.

"Almighty ever-living God, comfort of mourners, strength of all who toil, may the prayers of those who cry out in any tribulation come before you, that all may rejoice, because in their hour of need your mercy was at hand.  Through Christ our Lord."

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, maestorum consolatio, laborantium fortitudo, perveniant ad te preces de quacumque tribulatione clamantium, ut omnes sibi in necessitatibus suis misericordiam tuam gaudeant affuisse.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum."

     Concluding prayer of the Solemn intercessions, Friday of the Passion of the Lord, Missale Romanum.  According to Bruylants, vol. 2, p. 217, no. 766, this was (indeed the Solemn intercessions were) present in the mid 8th-century Gelasian sacramentary.

"desire for the Eucharist, i.e. spiritual communion, is totally different from the union by faith in Christ [(alternatively, union by faith with Christ)] taught by [some] Protestants".

 "le désir de l'eucharistie ou la communion spirituelle est totalement different de l'union par la foi au Christ, enseignée par les protestants.…"

     Louis de Bazelaire, "Communion spirituelle," Dictionnaire de spiritualité 2.2 (1953), col. 1298 (cols. 1294-1300).  Whether de Bazelaire gets his sole-case-in-point-Luther right is another matter.  Nor is there, I think, anything wrong with the doctrine of union with Christ by faith.  It's just that it's not to be identified with this "Catholic extra," i.e. the properly Catholic doctrine of "spiritual communion," which is an intense desire for specifically the very "body, blood, soul, and divinity" of Christ that the bread and wine have in substance become.

Pseudo-St. Richard of Chichester: "know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, day by day"

NOT, I think, the author!

     Here is one common version of this prayer, the version attributed to St. Richard of Chichester (c. 1197-1253) in the Oxford dictionary of saints, ed. Farmer (1997), and very often in other supposedly reputable sources, stretching at least as far back as 1913 (G. R. Bullock-Webster, ed., The churchman's prayer manual, 3rd ed. (London, 1913 [1913]), 31:

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ for all the benefits thou hast given me, for all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for me. O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, day by day.

In bold above is the portion of this prayer that can indeed be traced back to St. Richard of Chichester as reported by Ralph Bocking O.P. (?) at Acta sanctorum 10 (April Tom. I, at 3 April), 281 col. 1 par. 3 (cap. III, sec. 18, paragraph divisions mine):

Gratias tibi ago, Domine Jesu Christe, de omnibus beneficiis quae mihi praestitisti, pro poenis et opprobriis quae pro me pertulisti, propter quae planctus ille lamentabilis tibi vere competebat, Non est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.  Et tu nosti [sic], Domine, quod si tibi placeret, omnia opprobria et tormenta atque mortem pro te paratus essem sustinere:  et sicut tu scis hoc verum esse, miserere mei, quia tibi commendo animam meam. 

Illam autem Psalmistae vocem, quae dicit, In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum meum, frequentius iterans, et ad gloriosam Virginem vicissim corde simul et voce se convertens, ait:  Maria, mater gratiae, mater misericordiae, tu nos ab hoste protégé et hora mortis suscipe: 

et praecepit Capellanis, quod illa verba in auribus suis dicere non cessarent.

and partially translated by Cecil Headlam in 1898 (Prayers of the saints, being a manual of devotions (London:  F. E. Robinson, 1898), 33-34):

LORD JESU CHRIST, I thank Thee for all the blessings Thou hast given me, and for all the sufferings and shame Thou didst endure for me, on which account that pitiable cry of sorrow was Thine : " Behold and see, if there was any sorrow like unto My sorrow ! " Thou knowest, Lord, how willing I should be to bear insult, and pain, and death for Thee ; therefore have mercy on me, for to Thee do I commend my spirit.

The Church of England COVID-19 mash-up with St. Alphonsus Liguori aside, most of that is as per Wikipedia as accessed on 4 April 2020, and other sites, too, for example that of the Center for Action and Contemplation (post by Richard Rohr dated 9 February 2020).  (For what very little this may be worth, I have also gone beyond Wikipedia in searching the above scan of Acta sanctorum 10.  Frater (which is extremely common) occurs eight times in the pages devoted to St. Richard of Chichester, none of them relevant.  Redemptor and Amice (also vocatives) occur a few times elsewhere in the volume, but not in the pages on St. Richard.  Searching on "know thee", "love thee", and "follow thee" would be more complicated, but the above, at least, should be taken as further confirmation of the claim that the second half of the prayer above does not come from St. Richard of Chichester.)
     The claim is usually (?) that "versions of St Richards prayer, before the 20th century, did not contain the triplet and . . . that the first version that did was published in "The Churchmans Prayer Manual" by G.R.Bullock-Webster in 1913" (above; Wikipedia).
     BUT:  that is not the first version in which "the triplet" occurs, at least (?) not without that sentence lifted from Acta sanctorum.  Here are the earlier ones (as it happens without those words) that I've turned up so far.  Note, by the way, how very widely the incipit (especially) varies:

• 1892.  Incipit:  "We pray to know thee more clearly, to follow thee more steadfastly, to serve thee more obediently."  No known words of St. Richard of Chichester, no attribution.
• 1892.  Incipit:  "Dear Lord, of thee | three things I pray: | To know thee more clearly, | To love thee more dearly, | To walk more nearly | Every day."  No known words of St. Richard of Chichester, no attribution.
• 1895 (possibly a reprint; see the "Publisher's Preface").  Incipit:  "Father, of Thee | Three things we pray: | To know Thee more clearly, | To love Thee more dearly, | To follow Thee more nearly | Every day."  No known words of St. Richard of Chichester, "Author unknown".  
• 1900 May 25.  Incipit:  "Dear Lord, of the [sic] three things I pray; to know Thee more clearly; to love Thee more dearly; to walk more nearly every day" ("State S. S. workers hold their annual convention in Grand Forks:  a great gathering," Grand Forks [North Dakota] Daily Herald 19, no. 177 (May 25, 1900), p. 1, col. 1, America's Historical Newspapers (Readex)).
• 1906.  Incipit:  "Dear Lord, for these three things I pray".  No known words of St. Richard of Chichester, no attribution.
• 1907 May 25.  Incipit:  "Grant, O Lord, that I may".  No known words of St. Richard of Chichester, no attribution.

     The phrases of "the triplet" taken individually were not unknown earlier, of course.  Here is one striking occurrence, though one could list others:

• 1699:  "know thee more clearly, and love thee more Seraphically".

I have not been able to get anything as striking as that to occur in either Eighteenth Century Collections Online or Early English Books Online.

Zwingli's "Gebetslied in der Pest"

A Christian song written by Huldrych Zwingli when he was attacked by the pestilence. I. At the Beginning of the Illness. Help, Lord God help In this trouble! I think, Death is at the door. Stand before me, Christ; For Thou hast overcome him! To Thee I cry; If it is Thy will, Take out the dart, Which wounds me! Nor lets me have an hour’s Rest or repose! Will’st Thou however That Death take me In the midst of my days, So let it be! Do what Thou wilt; Me nothing lacks. Thy vessel am I; To make or break altogether. For, if Thou takest away My spirit From this earth, Thou dost it, that it may not grow worse, Nor spot The pious lives and ways of others. II. In the Midst of His Illness. Console me, Lord God, console me! The illness increases, Pain and fear seize My soul and body. Come to me then, With Thy grace, O my only consolation! It will surely save Everyone, who His heart’s desire And hope sets On Thee, and who besides Despises all gain and loss. Now all is up. My tongue is dumb, It cannot speak a word. My senses are all blighted. Therefore is it time That Thou my fight Conductest hereafter; Since I am not So strong, that I Can bravely Make resistance To the Devil’s wiles and treacherous hand. Still will my spirit Constantly abide by Thee, however he rages. III. During Convalescence. Sound, Lord God, sound! I think, I am Already coming back. Yes, if it please Thee, That no spark of sin Rule me longer on earth, Then my lips must Thy praise and teaching Bespeak more Than ever before, However it may go, In simplicity and with no danger. Although I must The punishment of death Sometime endure Perhaps with greater anguish, Than would now have Happened, Lord! Since I came So near; So will I still The spite and boasting Of this world Bear joyfully for the sake of the reward By Thy help, Without which nothing can be perfect.

Ein christenlich gsang gestalt durch H. Z., als er mit pestilentz angriffen ward. [1.] Im anfang der kranckheit.      Hilff, herr got, hilff in diser not! Ich mein, der tod sey an der thür. Stand, Christe, für, dann du in überwunden hast! Zů dir rich gilff: Ist es dein will, züch uß den pfyl, der mich verwundt! Nit laß ein stund mich haben weder růw noch rast! Wilt du dann glych tod haben mich in mitz der tagen min, so sol es willig sin. Thů, wie du wilt; mich nüt befilt. Din haf bin ich. Mach gantz ald brich; dann, nimpst du hin den geiste min von diser erd, thůst du’s, daß er nit böser werd ald andren nit befleck ir läben fromm und sit. [2.] In mitten der kranckheit.      Tröst, herr got, tröst! Die kranckheit wachßt, wee und angst faßt min seel und lyb. Darumb dich schyb gen mir, einiger trost, mit gnad, die gwüß erlößt ein yeden, der sin hertzlich bgär und hoffnung setzt in dich, verschetzt darzů diß zyt all nutz und schad. Nun ist es umm. Min zung ist stumm, mag sprechen nit ein wort. Min sinn sind all verdort. Darumb ist zyt, das du min stryt fůrist fürhin, so ich nit bin so starck, daß ich mög dapfferlich thůn widerstand deß tüfels facht unnd fräffner hand. Doch wirt min gmůt stat blyben dir, wie er ioch wůt. [3.] In der besserung.      Gsund, herr got, gsund! Ich mein, ich ker schon widrumb her. Ja, wenn dich dunckt, der sünden funck werd nit mer bherrschen mich uff erd, so můß min mund din lob unnd leer ußsprechen mer dann vormals ye, wie es ioch gen, einfaltigklich on alle gferd. Wiewol ich můß deß todes bůß erleyden zwar ein mal vilicht mit grösserm qual, dann yetzund wer geschähen, her, so ich sunst bin nach gfaren hin; so wil ich doch den trutz und boch in diser wält tragen frölich umb widergelt mit hilffe din, on den nüt mag vollkummen sin.

     Huldrych Zwingli, "Ein christenlich gsang gestalt durch H. Z., als er mit pestilentz angriffen ward" (1519/1525), trans. Samuel Macauley Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli:  the reformer of German Switzerland, 1484-1531, 2nd ed., rev. (New York and London:  G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1900), 132-134 =CR 88, 67-69.  For more on this, see Thomas Martin Schneider, "Der Mensch als 'Gefäß Gottes': Huldrych Zwinglis Gebetslied in der Pest und die Frage nach seiner reformatorischen Wende," Zwingliana 35 (2008):  5-21, who summarizes the debate over 1) date of composition (late 1519 to the second half of 1525) on the one hand, and 2) Catholic, humanistic, or reformed content on the other, before opting for 2) a clearly Reformed content, but rooted in a characteristically "providential or predestinarian 'vessel of God' theology" consistent with, though not necessarily dependent on, the Luther who took Erasmus on in December of 1525; a reformed content that nevertheless 2) needn't necessarily settle the question of date of composition (in favor of, say, late 1525).